On the one hand, Mr. Wood wrote, it allowed the writer to “revel in sheer storytelling,” and on the other to “undermine, ironically, the very ‘truths’ and simplicities his apparently unsophisticated narrators traded in.”

Being pushed up against the stage by a mass of huge, fist-pumping 45-year-old man-metalheads bellowing in sheer joy at the mindblowing amazement that is Gigi Gleason (pictured) was, like, life-altering.

3. Shipbuilding. to give sheer to (a hull).–noun4. a deviation or divergence, as of a ship from its course; swerve.5. Shipbuilding. the fore-and-aft upward curve of the hull of a vessel at the main deck or bulwarks.6. Nautical. the position in which a ship at anchor is placed to keep it clear of the anchor.